Issue - meetings

To formally report the receipt of a petition submitted requesting the provision of public conveniences in the Jaywick Sands beach area.

RESOLVED that Cabinet endorses the comments of the Portfolio Holder for Assets as this Council’s formal response to the Petition.

Cabinet considered a report of the Head of Democratic Services & Elections (A.10), which formally reported the receipt of a petition submitted requesting the provision of public conveniences in the Jaywick Sands beach area.

It was reported that, a paper petition submitted by Danny Sloggett as lead petitioner, on behalf of the Jaywick Sands Happy Club, had been received during April 2024. The petition contained 86 names and addresses that were legible and those persons were on the electoral register.

Cabinet was informed that the petition requested that public conveniences be provided in the Jaywick Sands beach area. The explanatory text for the petition stated:-

“We have been approached by holiday makers and locals concerning the lack of toilets by the beach to the point of locals finding people defecating in their gardens.

It’s only going to get worse now the summer is here and the holiday makers are flooding in. We have a beautiful beach to enjoy but nowhere for people to go to the toilet.”

Members were reminded that Public Conveniences were an executive function (Assets Portfolio) and therefore the Cabinet was the appropriate body to consider this matter.

The report contained the advice of the Assistant Director (Building & Public Realm), which was as follows:-

“Tendring District Council owns two existing public convenience locations in the Jaywick area: new facilities centrally located and recently opened on the Sunspot site and nearby older facilities at Tamarisk way which have been closed following severe vandalism. The new facilities are within around 700m of all parts of Jaywick Beach. Holiday makers at the nearby holiday parks have the benefit of facilities provided on those sites for their use.

By comparison the beach area of Clacton and Holland is served by six public conveniences (some seasonal) along its approximately 6 Km frontage. There is some signposting to nearest facilities.

Tendring District Council’s public convenience strategy for Tendring adopted in June 2017 was to provide accessible, safe, high quality public conveniences for residents and visitors. The Council has committed to a full review of this strategy in the current financial year.

The strategy proposed to achieve this aim by rationalising existing facilities that were considered to be operating from buildings that could no longer be maintained cost effectively, were located in areas which resulted in under use, or unacceptable levels of misuse and investing savings from closing such facilities into the refurbishment and improvement of remaining public toilets, bringing them up to appropriate standards.

The assessment also noted that provision of public toilets is a discretionary and not a statutory service provided by the local authority and as such is reflected in budgets.

The construction of a significant new public convenience on a shoreline site is likely to be substantially costly and may be hard to prioritise against other investment needs in the prevailing financial landscape.

The Council’s public convenience strategy has ensured that all areas of the district that previously had public toilets would continue to be served by them. Jaywick Sands previously  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39